“I thought it was the school.” He wanted to sound brave, but his voice quavered. The hand holding the robovac trembled.
“Charlie . . .”
“You gave me the catalog. You probably gave David Sun his. What, do you just go from school to school as Sakora’s front man?”
“Charlie . . .” Dr. Roger said again, with something new in his tone. Fear. “It’s not like that. I don’t work for Sakora, but I agree with their methods, and sometimes doctors and companies can work together.” He interlaced his fingers. “I know the lines are a little blurry, but let’s just talk about this.”
Charlie wanted to say something defiant. He wanted the last word. But he was too scared. He’d never faced down an adult. So he ran. He tossed the robovac and ran for the door, down the hall, and out into the gray afternoon.
He looked over his shoulder a hundred times on the way to the campsite, his bike wobbling on the wet roads. Cars roared past, spraying dingy road water. Charlie imagined black-suited Sakora agents, ready to reach out and grab him. He didn’t slow down until he reached Cliff Road and the stand of trees marking the entrance to the dirt path.
There was a rusted Caddy by the campsite. Charlie came to the edge of the pit. Someone was there, text-messaging. Her face was hidden by a curtain of ink-colored hair, but he recognized her.
“Hello.”
Rebecca looked up and gasped. “You scared me.”
Charlie walked down to meet her. “Hi, Rebecca.”
She stood, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “Hi, Charlie.”
“Don’t you have rehearsals in the afternoon?”
“I quit the play.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes met his. “Oh, Charlie. You shouldn’t be sorry. I’m the one who should be sorry. I was such a jackass, a total pretentious bitch, but it’s only because I wanted to impress you.” The words rushed out of her, the pressure of days finally released. “Because you’re obviously really smart and know science and I’m just a stupid actress with big boobs. But of course you thought I was a total jackass, and I was a jackass. I am a jackass. And I’m just so, so sorry.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said again, staring at the ground.
“I actually meant about quitting the play,” Charlie said.
She covered her face in her hands. “Right. Of course.”
Silence. Charlie felt himself closing up. He willed himself to say something. Anything. The first thing that came to his mind.
“Rebecca, I think you’re . . .”
“Charlie.”
Rose appeared at the top of the stairs, the wind whipping her hair into dancing flames of red. Charlie and Rebecca glanced at each other. Rebecca’s smile vanished.
“Oh,” she said. “I guess you two are together, huh?”
Rose hurried down the stairs, grinning. “It’s so good to see you.” She wrapped her arms around him, but Charlie didn’t move. Rose backed away. “What’s wrong?”
“Could I, um, talk to Rose for a second?” he said to Rebecca.
She nodded. “Yeah, of course. I’m sure you two want to be alone.”
“I need to talk to you too,” he managed. “If you don’t mind waiting.”
Rebecca’s eyes went wide. “Oh. Um, no. I don’t mind.”
She climbed the stairs, looking back twice before disappearing above the ledge.
“Do you know her?” Rose said.
“She’s just someone I need to talk to.” He stared at the spot where Rebecca had been.
“She’s lovely.”
Charlie’s eyes hardened. He faced her. “Did you cheat on David?”
Rose flinched. “What?”
“Did David leave you because you cheated on him?”
“Did you see him? Did he tell you that?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Charlie exploded. “You just forgot that little detail? And here I am helping, getting in trouble for you . . . and for who? Who are you really? A cheater?”
“No!” Rose said, her eyes brimming with tears. “How could you think that?” She wiped her eyes furiously. “Damn it! Why am I crying? Why is it always me that cries? Why don’t boys ever cry?”
“Oh, stop it. You can probably turn them on like a switch.”
Rose’s hands fell limp to her sides. “Oh. I see now.”
“What?”
“You’re like him. You’re just like him. Is that the way it is with boys and girls?”
Charlie’s cheeks grew hot. “Is what the way it is?”
“Boys make the rules. They do what they want, when they want, and the girls just have to be perfect. And if the girls aren’t perfect, too bad. They can just be alone. And be lonely. Do you know how awful lonely is?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do know.” He clenched his jaw. “Look, we don’t have time for this. Come on.” He grabbed her roughly by the arm. “We have to get out of here. We —”
There was a sharp crack, like a branch breaking. Charlie felt a flash of pain across his cheek. He put his hand to his face — the skin was hot. He gaped at her. Rose stared back, her eyes scared but focused. She’d slapped him. She’d slapped him in the face.
“Don’t grab me,” she said. He released her arm. “I’m . . . I’m sorry, but you can’t grab me like that.”
“OK,” Charlie whispered.
“I’m not your Companion.”
“I know.”
They were silent. Leaves rustled at their feet. The sting in his cheek felt almost numbing.
Rose sniffed. “I’m not a cheater, either.”
“OK,” said Charlie. “I don’t . . . most people you can’t . . . I can’t trust people, usually. I’d like to trust you.”
“I don’t lie. And I didn’t cheat. But I can’t tell you what happened.”
“Why not?”
“Because you won’t like me anymore,” she said. “And you’ll throw me away.”
“I wouldn’t ever do that,” he said.
Rose sighed, her breath shuttering. “Companions don’t have girl parts. You can’t have sex with me, Charlie.”
Charlie blinked. “I . . . who said I wanted to have sex with you?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
He laughed weakly. “Well, maybe, but I mean, we’re friends first.”
Rose didn’t reply.
“I like you,” he said.
“But I’m incomplete,” she said, “and not very sweet anymore. I used to be sweet, at least. I don’t know what happened.”
“Sweet is nice, but . . .” Charlie laughed again. “You’re real.”
Rose smiled through her tears. “I thought you were going to say sour.” Her smile faded. “I can’t get him out of my head, Charlie.”
“So, what do we do?”
“I have an idea,” she said, sniffing. “But I’m going to need your help.”
Rebecca sat on the hood of her car, humming tunelessly to her iPod. When she saw Charlie, she took out her earbuds.
“Lovers’ quarrel?”
“Could you give us a ride?” he asked.
Rebecca piloted the old Cadillac onto Route 290. The late-day traffic was heavy with commuters. The sun blazed behind them, casting a diamond gleam on the city’s two skyscrapers.
Charlie closed Rebecca’s cell phone and handed it back.
“Well? Did Paul give you the address?”
“Yeah. It’s on Water Street. Ten minutes from here.” Charlie fiddled with his door lock.
“Could you not do that, please?”
“Sorry.”
He looked over his shoulder at Rose, who stared out the window, her expression unreadable. He began fidgeting with the zipper of his jacket.
“You’re jumpy.”
“It’s been a weird few days.”
“You’d never know she wasn’t real,” Rebecca said quietly. “Or, I mean, not human.”
Charlie nodded.
“Paul’s isn’t like her at all.”
; “She’s been through a lot,” said Charlie.
“Yeah.”
Rebecca pulled off at Water Street, onto the dusty, vacant back alleys. Newspapers shuffled down the street like tumbleweeds. They passed unfriendly doorways and dark foyers, peeling stucco and brick facades, heavily curtained windows and signs for bread companies and hot-dog stands long gone.
“Seven-fifty and a half,” Charlie said. “This is it.”
Rebecca pulled to the curb.
The building was rail-thin and dilapidated, taking up one half of an overgrown lot between two large warehouses.
“Rose?”
Rose snapped out of her reverie. “Oh. Thank you, Rebecca.”
“Any time, babe.” She smiled warmly in the mirror. “Call me, OK? We’ll hang out again.”
“I’d like that.”
Rose got out. Charlie cleared his throat.
They spoke in unison:
“Listen . . .”
“Look . . .”
“We didn’t get a chance to talk,” Charlie pushed on. “I’m not very good at talking to girls.”
“You can talk to Rose.”
“She’s like . . . the only friend I have,” said Charlie. “Lame, huh?”
“Well, you should have at least two.” He looked at her over his glasses, and she smiled. “Call me, OK?”
“I will.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not so different from most guys, you know.” She pushed open his door. “Now get out, ya bum.”
Charlie stepped onto the street. He leaned in through the open window. “Thank you, Rebecca.”
She smiled, unsure of what to say — then blew him a starlet kiss. “See you around, stud.”
Number 750 ½ had a dirty rust-colored exterior. A series of peg-like buttons lined the foyer wall, letters A through Z. Charlie pressed P.
“Yes?” a girl’s voice answered. She had a thick Latino accent.
“We’re here to see May.”
“No one here by dat name.”
Charlie pressed the button again.
“Please. I need her to help my friend.”
“She no here. Dank you. Good-bye.”
“What do we do?” Rose asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Your friend have number?” The voice came back.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“She have number? On her hand? Your friend?”
“Number on her hand?”
Rose held up her hands. There were no numbers. Charlie looked closely. “Let me see your palm,” he said, taking her hand. He examined her mole. If he turned it and squinted . . .
“Yes!” Charlie said, pressing the button. “She has a number.”
“I do?” Rose said, stretching the skin. “Where?”
“What her number?”
“It’s a one. She’s got a number one on her palm.”
“Just a one?”
“Just one,” Charlie said.
There was a long pause. When the voice spoke again, the accent was gone. “OK, come on up.”
There was a growling buzz, and the door unlocked. They climbed a flight of dingy stairs, passed graffitied walls. Empty bottles and Styrofoam cups gathered in the corners. At last they came to the door marked P. It was open a crack.
The apartment was neat and white. Black-and-white photos of old buildings hung on the walls. There was a coffee table with magazines, a couch, and folding chairs. It looked like a doctor’s office.
Six couples were waiting. Charlie recognized Martin Clark, another sophomore from Saint Seb’s, and Derek Fini from homeroom. Derek had his birthmark; Martin a wiry, almost alien frame and gaunt features. The other four, boys Charlie didn’t recognize from Saint Seb’s, were overweight, pimpled, or pasty. Each was unappealing in some way, but next to each sat a gorgeous girl, a bombshell knockout devotedly stroking his hand, or holding his arm, or resting her hand on his knee.
As they came through the door, a dozen pairs of eyes raised to meet them.
“Oh.” The word escaped Rose’s lips like a bubble, floating up to the ceiling.
“Let’s grab a seat.”
They sat across from Derek and a platinum blonde with a supermodel figure, his Companion. She was identical to Paul Lampwick’s.
“Hey, Charlie,” Derek said. He held his Companion’s hand in a death grip. She didn’t seem to mind. “I didn’t know you had one.”
Rose and Charlie exchanged an awkward look.
Derek looked back and forth between them, then nodded. “Oh. I get it. She’s brand-new, huh? Yeah. I got mine last week. I’m asking for the full boat. Kissing, touching, everything. Well, I know you can’t do everything with them. But you can do a lot without a . . . you know.”
“What’s your name?” Rose asked Derek’s Companion. Her face brightened as she turned to Rose.
“Hello, I’m Lily.” She extended a hand to shake.
“Rose,” said Rose. Lily went back to staring into space.
Derek beamed. “Isn’t she the greatest?”
Lily looked like a zombie. All the girls did. The pale brunette holding Martin’s arm looked half-asleep. There were only a few models. Sitting across the room next to a boy with ears like car doors was another Lily. There were two identical chocolate-skinned brunettes. Two with midnight-black hair and cream complexions.
Rose remembered her nightmare — the rows and rows of bodies. She hadn’t seen their faces, but now she could. Rows of blondes, rows of brunettes, rows of girls with hair like an oil slick. And their names, too. Lily. Others came to her like petals drifting to the ground. Violet. Daisy. Sakora’s little flowers. Standing in a row.
But there were no other Roses.
“Is this . . . is this what I’m like?” she whispered in Charlie’s ear.
“No,” Charlie whispered back. “Not at all.”
At the far end of the room a heavy metal door squealed open. A short girl with a black bob appeared. She was dressed in overalls, a tie-dye T-shirt, and loose sneakers. She pulled off a pair of industrial welding gloves and grinned. This, Charlie thought, must be May Poling. The black-market Companion tech.
“All righty, folks, who’s next?”
Derek raised his hand.
May’s liquid blue eyes scanned the room and came to rest on Charlie and Rose. Her mad-scientist grin faltered.
“Whoa, hold everything.” She was at their side in three steps. “Who is this vision?”
“Uh . . .” Charlie said.
“May Poling.” She shook Rose’s hand. “I’m a Pisces, and very good with my hands. And you are”— she looked Rose up and down —“absolutely marvelous.”
Rose’s cheeks turned the color of her hair. “Oh . . . thank you.”
“Come, you first,” she said, pulling Rose to her feet. “You may bring your boy with you,” she added, waving vaguely at Charlie.
“But . . .” Derek said. “But we’ve been here an hour.”
“Tut-tut, Mr. Fini. All in good time.”
The adjoining room was lined with worktables. Shelves of metallic parts covered the walls. If the waiting room was like a doctor’s office, the lab was an auto garage. Loops of wire slung from the ceiling, and clunky equipment beeped and hummed and flashed tiny lights. Some of it still bore faded pink cherry blossoms, though the insignia had been scratched out or, in one case, painted with a red bull’s-eye.
“You’ll have to pardon the mess,” May said. She noticed Charlie staring at her equipment. “Yeah, OK, I took some souvenirs when I quit Sakora. Call it ideological differences. ‘Solutions for Life,’” she said in a snotty voice. “As if life was a problem! Please, have a seat. Let’s chat.”
They sat on a sagging mustard couch. May dropped into a rolling chair and tipped back, propping her sneakers on a bench.
“So the first thing you need to know is that I believe in choice,” May said. “I think a girl ought to choose
for herself what sort of touching is OK and what isn’t. So what I do here, I do for the Companion, not for the dude.”
Charlie cleared his throat. “We’re not here about that.”
May looked at Charlie, then at Rose. “Who’s your boy?”
“Charlie Nuvola,” Charlie said. “And I’m not her boy.”
May raised an eyebrow.
“And she’s not my girl,” he added quickly. “We’re just friends.”
“And is that the problem?”
Rose cleared her throat. “I lost my boy.”
May’s face went serious. “How?”
“He doesn’t want me anymore.”
May scratched her nose. “Why not?”
Charlie shifted in his seat.
“Because he couldn’t have sex with me,” Rose said.
May considered this. “Go on.”
“I want to know if you can get him out,” Rose said. She tapped her temple. “Out of here.”
“Ah.”
“Ever done it before?” Charlie asked.
Her thoughtful scowl broke into a grin. “No. But I can’t wait to try.”
Charlie sat back. Rose squeezed his hand. “Um, how much do you charge for that?” he said. “I don’t have a lot of money.”
“I work pro bono. Or, pro boner, as some of the boys say.” She rolled her eyes. “Boys.”
Charlie shook his head to clear it. He was finding it hard to follow her meaning. “I feel sort of . . . weird.”
May leaned forward. “Oh, yeah, don’t mind that. You’re just a little stoned.” She laughed, a tumbling, excited titter. “I’m sorry, I should have told you. It’s all thanks to old Bessie here.” She rapped her fist against a tin water jug with a thick black extension cord connected to the base. “There’s weed up here in the neck. It’s calibrated so only the THC burns. No smoke. Just sweet goodness.” She favored them with a loopy grin. “Pretty great, huh?”
Rose eyed the dented canister. It looked nothing like Charlie’s dad’s equipment. “You’ve got weeds in there?”
Another titter, this one even higher. “Oh, sweetie. We do need to educate you, don’t we?”
“Jesus.” Charlie rubbed his temples. “It’s like there are cotton balls in my head.”
May took a dramatic breath. “Yeah, it’s pretty good stuff. I can sell you some if you want. . . .”
Girl Parts Page 13